Word: drought
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...drought has claimed an equally grim toll in parts of Ethiopia. Provincial bureaucrats kept the horrific dimensions of the catastrophe secret from Addis Ababa, fearing that bad news would anger and embarrass Emperor Haile Selassie and perhaps lead to their own dismissal. Finally, last spring, the number of deaths grew so great that the bureaucrats had to admit their existence and ask for international aid. At first the drought seemed confined to eastern Ethiopia. But a new government survey uncovered big pockets of famine to the south and southeast of the capital. In Bale province alone an estimated...
...Drought is not the only enemy. Rain can be just as devastating. When the spring rains came to Ethiopia this March, they broke all known records. Ten inches fell in some sections in three days (compared with one-tenth inch last spring). The torrents washed away vital crops and thousands of tons of top soil. In Wallo province, worst hit by the famine, the deluge swept away villages and roads, overturned supply trucks and dangerously delayed relief efforts...
...Much of the donated food remains heaped high on the docks where it is prey to rats, locusts and thieves. The major problem, however, is logistics. U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, after inspecting the famine areas in February, reported: "I saw piles of foodstuffs in the capitals of the drought-stricken countries, but the governments told me they cannot ship it to the areas most afflicted. Because of the lack of roads-it is just sand, everywhere you look you have sand-after a relatively short time, the trucks are not usable any more...
...varsity stickmen ended a lacrosse win drought yesterday on home turf with a deluge of points rained on hapless crosstown rival MIT, while the freshman edition also put in its oar, with a come-from-behind triumph over visiting Andover...
Idle Pumps. The most threatening effect of the power shortage is on agriculture. This year, the combination of drought and fertilizer shortages is likely to hold India's grain harvest low enough to cause near famine; the power scarcity worsens the situation by making electric irrigation pumps all but useless. In Punjab state, wealthy farmers had purchased diesel pumps to use when the electric pumps failed, but the oil troubles have made diesel fuel scarce too. Gas stations selling diesel fuel have to be protected by policemen from mobs of farmers who wait for days for tank trucks...